CL_gm_sphericDist

Description

• This function is deprecated.

  Replacement functions: CL_co_sph2car and CL_vectAngle

• Computes the angle between 2 vectors. Each vector is described by 2 spherical coordinates (analogous to longitude and latitude).

  The three following formulas give the spherical distance between two vectors (where lambda: longitude, phi:latitude):

  

  However, the first formula is used in this function as the two other ones may lead to rounding errors for small angles or antipodal points.

Parameters

p1:

First direction in spherical coordinates: [longitude;latitude] [rad] (2xN)

p2:

Second direction in spherical coordinates: [longitude;latitude] [rad] (2xN)

ang:

Angle between p1 and p2 [rad] (1xN)

Authors

• CNES - DCT/SB

Bibliography

• 1) R.W. Sinnott, "Virtues of the Haversine", Sky and Telescope, vol. 68, no. 2, 1984, p. 159

• 2) Weisstein, Eric W. "Great Circle." From MathWorld. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GreatCircle.html

See also

• CL_co_car2sph

• CL_co_sph2car

Examples

// Spherical distance between Toulouse (43deg 36' 19"N, 1deg 26' 34"E) // and Barcelona (41deg 24' 7"N, 2deg 10' 17"E) Toulouse = [43 + 36/60 + 19/3600; 1 + 26/60 + 34/3600] * %pi/180; Barcelona = [41 + 24/60 + 7/3600; 2 + 10/60 + 17/3600] * %pi/180; ang = CL_gm_sphericDist(Toulouse, Barcelona)